Northern Dynasty files appeal over Pebble permit rejection

Bruno Venditti | January 22, 2021 | 9:39 am News United States 
Northern Dynasty Pebble project Alaska
Northern Dynasty’s Pebble project in Alaska suffers another setback. Credit: Northern Dynasty

Northern Dynasty reported on Thursday its US subsidiary Pebble Limited Partnership has filed an appeal with the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) over its decision to deny a key water permit for the Pebble copper-goldmolybdenum-silver-rhenium mine in Alaska.

The USACE denied the Clean Water Act permit in November because the plan submitted by the Pebble Limited Partnership detailing how it would handle the project’s waste in the ecologically sensitive area did not comply with guidelines.

“Additional details about the Pebble Partnership’s RFA (request for appeal) submission will be released in the days and weeks ahead,” Northern Dynasty Minerals said on Thursday.

The former President Donald Trump had moved closer in July to approving the mine’s permit, reversing a decision by Barack Obama.

But a prominent group of Republicans, including Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr., had publicly voiced opposition, saying the mine would destroy areas of good fishing and hunting.

“Northern Dynasty believes that key aspects of the USACE’s ROD and permitting decision – including its ‘significant degradation’ finding, its ‘public interest review’ findings and its perfunctory rejection of Pebble’s
CMP – are contrary to law, unprecedented in Alaska and fundamentally unsupported by the administrative record” said Pebble Partnership in a press release.

With resource estimates including 6.5 billion tonnes in the measured and indicated categories containing 57 billion pounds of copper and 71 million ounces of gold, 3.4 billion pounds of molybdenum and 345 million silver ounces, if permitted, Pebble would be North America’s largest mine.

Midday Friday, Northern Dynasty’s shares were up 4% on the TSE. The company has a C$344 million market capitalization.

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